I might be a bad person. Personally, I believe that I am not, and I am just full of candor. However, It's wrong of me to assume everyone else is the issue. I think that a lot of people choose to present their arguments in a binary way, and then ignore half of the point they're making. So as someone with a huge respect for binary, I like to brutally remind people of the other side of the argument. This is exactly what I tried to do last class.
In the previous class we talked about peer learning. Personally, I think it's a lazy teaching method which attempts to take some of the responsibility of actually teaching the students off of the teacher. I teach martial arts as my profession currently, and if the business continues to go well, possibly permanently. If I allowed students to teach each other essentially any of the curriculum nothing would get done. A lot of the class disagreed with the idea that peer learning is detrimental, and here is where my need to be a devil's advocate comes in. From this, I have devised what an ideal learning environment would be. Despite how Utopian and unattainable it would be, I believe that would follow the following criteria:
- No state mandated testing of any kind. It is a waste of valuable time that could be spent learning rather than providing metrics for a looming bureaucratic body.
- No work would be done outside the class. The majority of the American workforce does not take their work home with them, it's misleading and wrong to expect children to conform to a standard most adults do not have to.
- Early and strong specialization. If a child feels they would be best suited for a trade then more trade classes would be taught to them, the same for liberal arts etc. Following the German system of schooling would be most efficient.
-Instructors for courses are experts within their own specialized field. I have learned too many science classes from English teachers and too many foreign language classes from History teachers. If you want to be proficient in the area you're learning, you need to learn from people who know what they're talking about.
-Practical examinations. We rely far too much on testing memory in education and not actual learning.
-Real Life Experience. For one year of a child's high school education they would make a short list of 10 jobs they would want to try, and shadow someone in the field. This would result in less unhappy people in a career they don't want after college.
I call this system Anti-Establishment Education, because it sheds the need for educational statistics, out of touch forced curriculum, and a overreaching governing body. I believe that if even some components of this system could be followed, there would be a lot less BS involved in education.
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